


Five Vocations

by Clair de Lune (clair_de_lune)



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series, Prompt Fic, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 21:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clair_de_lune/pseuds/Clair%20de%20Lune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of the careers he considered with the passing years remained wishful thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Vocations

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt by Alohomoraa": what career for Michael if he hadn’t been a structural engineer? Thanks to RecycledFaery for the beta.

Some of the careers he considered with the passing years remained wishful thinking.

**Superman**

He had to give up on that one because he couldn’t fly, as he discovered three days before his fifth birthday. Although Mom always affirmed the contrary, he thought it might have been because of the cape, but all in all, it didn’t really matter: the experience had been way too humiliating and painful to be renewed.

He managed to climb up the wardrobe in the bedroom he shared with Lincoln, no problem. He dove aiming for his bed; Linc was supposed to catch him if necessary. And Linc tried, but he was absolutely not expecting the violence of the collision and he ended up on his back between the bed and the small dresser, a bit groggy, Michael lying on top of him with his wrist bent at a weird angle.

_When he crawls in the air ducts and holds out his hand to Doctor Tancredi, who’s locked in the infirmary, he flashbacks to that day. And then he remembers that Sara is in this position because of him, which makes him the worst Superman ever, even today._

 

**Gigolo**

Lincoln didn’t hesitate the slightest second: when he heard, he slapped him hard enough for his head to whip and bounce against the wall.

He looked up, swallowing back his tears and biting his lips, unable to understand why his big brother was so angry at him. Linc grumbles, “Sorry, Mike, but honestly...” and asked him if he actually knew what a gigolo was. He had to admit that he didn’t, not really, but it was a pretty word.

Sighing, Lincoln tried to explain to him as tactfully as possible – that is, tactfully according to his standards – what it was about. “It’s a guy who does things to girls... you know? _those_ things in exchange for money.” He furrowed his brow as a sudden mixture of embarrassment and understanding, with maybe a hint of amusement, showed on Michael’s face. “Mike?”

Michael waffled just a bit before answering. “Cindy Campbell wanted to give me two bucks to kiss her.”

“Two bucks?” Lincoln pointed out with a small smile.

“You need the money?”

Lincoln goggled at him. “I’m no pimp!”

_It’s a bit subtler than that when he talks and smiles to Sara: he doesn’t quite do “those things” and it’s not quite “for money”. There’s some comfort in the idea that his motives are way nobler._

_And everything is just fine, until he starts talking and smiling with her, and not expecting anything from her in exchange. Then, it becomes a problem._

 

**Barman**

It wasn’t about the people, even though he’d admit that this kind of job probably provided quite an interesting observation lounge. It was about the perfection of a neat brandy or scotch. It was about the way the flavors, the odors, the colors mixed together, the way they blended to create an original cocktail and generate something entirely new. New but not unexpected: in the end, it was all about chemistry.

For him.

For Lincoln, it was just about alcohol and when he decided to get loaded, he didn’t pay much attention to the color or the age of the booze in his glass. It ultimately overwhelmed Michael’s fascination and turned it into disgust.

_Abruzzi, T-Bag and Lincoln locked together in the same room, several hours a day. He’s fully aware that if the three men hadn’t had a common goal, the cocktail would have blown up in his face long ago._

 

**Doctor**

He spent part of his childhood and teenage years taking care of his and Lincoln’s injuries – scratches, bruises, bumps, contusions of any kind, whether they had been caused by their foster parents, other kids or sometimes Lincoln himself. He applied more than his share of disinfectant, unguent and band aids on Lincoln’s face, hands and back when he came back from God only knows where at unholy hours, injured for only God knows what reason. For a while, it almost looked like it would be enough.

It didn’t last. Very soon, he recalled that the doctors had been unable to cure Mom, and then to ease her pain. It didn’t make him want to try to do better, it just taught him that sometimes, taking care isn’t enough to cure. It’s probably cowardice on his part, but he doesn’t think he would be able to stand that powerlessness.

_Through the infirmary glass, he watches Doctor Tancredi standing near Lincoln. Her gloved hands delicately palpating and her head bent, she talks and smiles while she examines Lincoln, and Michael can see on his brother’s face one of those rare smiles. Sara doesn’t cure, but Sara takes care, calms and appeases; Lincoln smiles to his doctor when he doesn’t smile to his brother._

_He admires and envies Sara for that, he couldn’t do that. It’s probably the reason why he’s standing here, Lincoln barely a few feet away and yet out of reach, trying the impossible and the unthinkable to get him out of here._

 

**Musician**

“You have pianist’s hands. You should be a musician,” Donna Harper told him once with an appreciative tone. One of his hands were resting flat on the young woman’s stomach, stroking the soft, taut skin, and the other one was in her hair, playing with the long locks. Both hands stiffened a bit when Donna spoke the few harmless words.

He couldn’t be a musician. Long ago, when Mom was still alive, she had tried to have him take music classes. She had tried to have him take a lot of classes, actually; it was a way to help him express and clear the sensations that constantly hammered him. The music didn’t help at all. Listening to it was one thing, but trying to play was inconceivable. There was the touch of the piano beneath his fingers, the sounds coming alive under his hands and vibrating through his whole body, the colors shining under his half closed eyelids, and in a matter of minutes, his brain was just overheated, overwhelmed. Too many variables, too many sensations to get and grasp at the same time.

He slid his fingers across Donna’s curved hip and, because eluding was easier than explaining, he answered, “I don’t really understand music.”

It wasn’t even totally a lie.

_He has his own small private orchestra in Fox River. Sure, there are a few wrong notes, a few members playing a bit too loud, a bit too solo, but all in all, the little melody comes alive, takes shape and confidence. It nears perfection when Lincoln’s hand – not a pianist’s hand by a long shot – grabs his wrist and hauls him above the wall._

\----------

He decided to become an engineer because he had always been captivated by structures and geometry. The way all elements work together and give something that can be functional and artistic at the same time. The perfect combination of efficiency and aesthetic.

Above his shoulder, he throws a look at the prison’s walls and praises himself for his choice.

-END-


End file.
